My Neighbor Framed My Husband, But I Have Proof

1: 1

The new neighbor next door knocked on my door in the middle of the night, saying a mouse had gotten into her place, and asking if my husband could help her catch it.

In my last life, I didn't think much of it. A girl who'd just moved in seemed a little pitiful, so I let my husband go help.

But I never imagined that the next morning, Winona Gilbert would call the police and claim my husband had assaulted her.

He had no way to defend himself. He tried to reason with her, but Winona said his fingerprints were in her apartment, that he'd come inside the night before.

Faced with fingerprint evidence, it didn't matter that we said he'd left them behind while helping her catch the mouse at her own request. No one believed us.

Winona even started a livestream, sobbing about her ordeal.

The company fired my husband, and a crowd of self-appointed do-gooders online organized and came to our building, grabbing hold of me and my husband and beating us.

In the shoving, I hit my head by accident and died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night Winona came knocking.

"Kay Dickerson, I just moved in and there's this huge mouse in my apartment. I'm scared. Could Jerome maybe help me catch it?"

Winona asked, her face pleading.

I only answered coldly, "My husband is afraid of mice too. Go find building management."

The moment I finished speaking, a flash of shock crossed Winona's face.

She hadn't expected me to say something like that.

"Kay, it's so late now, it feels wrong to bother management. Besides, Jerome doesn't look like he's afraid of mice at all!"

She looked at me, speaking urgently.

I only shook my head, cold. "Sorry, my husband really is scared!"

"And there's management here in the building. One phone call and someone comes!"

Having said that, I didn't wait for Winona to respond. I shut the door.

Beside me, my husband stared at me, stunned.

"Kay, it's just a mouse. There's no harm in us helping!"

I didn't answer him. I opened the livestream on my phone.

As a fashion blogger, I already had plenty of followers, and on any given day there were plenty of people in my livestream room.

I knew that right now, I had to leave evidence for myself, and those viewers in my livestream room were my evidence.

While I streamed, I deliberately kept my husband in the frame.

A lot of viewers were even curious, wondering why I'd put my husband on camera today of all days.

At exactly that moment, someone knocked on my door again.

I knew it had to be Winona.

I turned and glanced at my phone. It was still streaming. Only then did I let out a breath.

Then I got up and opened the door.

Sure enough, Winona was standing outside.

She looked at me with tear-filled eyes and said, "Kay, I called management!"

"They said no one can come until tomorrow morning!"

"I'm really scared, I can't sleep. I want to ask Jerome to help me catch the mouse!"

Winona looked at me, pleading.

I only shook my head. "Winona, it's not that I won't help you!"

"It's just that my husband is afraid of mice too. He really can't help!"

"Even if management can't come, you can call your landlord!"

"She doesn't live far. She could be here quickly!"

As I said this, I clearly saw that Winona's mood had shifted.

"Kay, just yesterday I saw Jerome catch two mice in the building!"

She looked at me, pleading. "Kay, please, I'm begging you, help me!"

"Sorry, I really can't help!"

2: 2

My coldness caught a lot of people in the livestream off guard.

On a normal day, this wasn't how I acted on stream at all.

Winona still wanted to beg me for something, but tonight, I couldn't be bothered to deal with her.

"Winona, if you won't do it yourself, I can call building management to come up. Don't worry, they'll absolutely send someone."

I pulled out my phone and said it right to her face.

Our building management was famous for its service. If a resident had a mouse, they'd send someone to handle it, no question.

Of that much, I was certain.

Which was exactly why it struck me as odd when Winona claimed management wouldn't come.

Seeing me about to make the call, Winona instantly panicked.

"Kay, I'll call management myself!"

Only after saying that did she turn and leave.

And only then did I set down my phone and go back to my seat.

The livestream was full of noise, plenty of viewers calling me heartless.

I let all of it go in one ear and out the other.

For me, this was the only way to make sure Winona's false accusation could never succeed.

After all, I knew exactly what kind of person Winona was.

"That's just cruel!"

"A young girl comes to your door asking for help, would it kill you to help her?"

I watched the comments scroll by, plenty of them cursing me.

Saying I had no heart. I just smiled and typed: "Our building has management!"

"Besides, you go into someone else's home, and if something happens in there, who's going to be able to explain it?"

My comeback made a lot of the comments go quiet.

But there were still plenty below, blaming me.

Saying I had a dark, twisted mind, that a perfectly nice young girl comes to your home begging for help, you go help her, how could anything possibly happen?

Those comments, I chose to ignore.

After all, I was the only one who knew what had happened in my last life.

My husband looked at me, wanting to say something, then glanced at the comments and closed his mouth.

I knew he wanted to ask. On any normal day I was famously warmhearted, nothing like this.

I streamed until midnight. Usually by that hour I'd have been asleep long ago, but today I'd been on stream the whole day.

At twelve, I finally ended the broadcast.

Meeting my husband's curious eyes, I said flatly, "Winona's up to no good."

At that, he didn't press any further. "Got it."

Jerome never said much, but he listened to me, and I knew this had gone in.

At the same time, scenes from my last life surfaced in my mind.

The day Winona moved in, she'd asked all about me and my husband, and studied the entrance to our place.

And in that last life, she'd opened her mouth wide at the police station demanding extra compensation, and that was when I understood: she'd set her sights on our money.

This time, my husband had never even set foot in her apartment, so there was no way she could report us, right?

What I didn't expect was that early the next morning, while my husband and I were still asleep, someone knocked on our door.

When I opened it and saw Winona standing there with two officers, I froze on the spot.

Just like last life, Winona had brought two officers with her.

Except this time, my husband had never once left the apartment.

"Ms. Dickerson, Ms. Gilbert came in this morning to file a report. She says last night, under the pretense of helping her catch a mouse, your husband assaulted her."

3: 3

When the officer finished speaking, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

The exact same script as my last life.

I turned to my husband, urgent.

"Did you go out last night?"

My voice was loud, still edged with that urgency.

Jerome shook his head. "Didn't I go straight to bed last night?"

"You watched me fall asleep!"

The moment he said it, I let out a breath.

As long as he hadn't left the apartment, I had nothing to worry about.

"Officer, you heard him!"

"My husband never went out at all yesterday!"

I said it fast, looking right at the officer.

At that, the two officers turned in unison to look at Winona behind them.

And in that instant, Winona cried even louder.

Her voice cracking, she said, "Officer, he really did assault me!"

"Last night, yes, I did ask Jerome over to catch a mouse for me!"

"And he came, but the second he was inside, he started pawing at me!"

"I'm just a girl, how was I supposed to fight him off!"

As she said it, she pointed straight at my husband.

"And Kay came to my place last night too, telling me to keep quiet about it!"

"She threatened me!"

"A girl like me, all alone here, of course I was scared!"

Winona said it, trembling all over.

Then she pointed at me. "Kay told me she's a big livestreamer, and her husband's a manager at some big company!"

"I just moved here from out of town. Of course I'd be terrified!"

As Winona sobbed through all of it, the two officers kept their eyes fixed on me.

Before I could get a word out, the property manager and a crowd had already appeared behind us.

The property manager came hurrying over.

He looked at us and asked what on earth had happened.

"Ms. Dickerson, first thing this morning, Ms. Gilbert posted in the group chat that your husband assaulted her last night!"

"It's already spread all through the chat!"

"The whole building knows now!"

The property manager said it looking at the two of us.

Jerome's face was grim. He started to argue, but I gave his arm a tug.

Then I pulled out my phone, and sure enough, the building's group chat was nothing but people cursing.

A whole crowd of them, swearing at me and my husband.

"Never would've guessed it. Jerome Rowe looks like a decent guy, and behind everyone's back he does something like this!"

"That Kay's no better. Her own husband pulls a stunt like that, and she covers for him!"

"Exactly, absolute garbage!"

"That poor girl!"

I watched the crowd going back and forth in the chat, then turned to look at Winona and said flatly, "Winona, this is slander!"

"My husband and I never left the apartment yesterday!"

"Kay, you two had your story straight ages ago, of course you'd say that!"

"I'm just a girl. I've got no grudge against either of you, so why would I slander you for no reason?"

"And on top of that, I'd be staking my own good name to slander you. Do you really think that's likely?"

The moment she finished, the neighbors crowding behind her to watch buzzed even louder.

Quite a few of them pointed at the two of us. "These two are absolute trash!"

"Right, they have to go to jail. And someone needs to find a way to get this couple thrown out of our building!"

4: 4

I listened to all of it, then turned to look at Winona, who was still playing the wronged victim.

Whatever had been left in my eyes was gone. Only the cold remained.

"Officers, what if I can prove my husband didn't do any of this?"

I looked at the two of them and asked it plainly.

In my last life, the whole thing blew up because my husband had gone over to Winona's to help catch a mouse.

But this time, neither of us had left the apartment at all.

And beyond that, I'd had proof of it from start to finish.

Last night, I livestreamed all the way to midnight.

The entire time, my husband and I were both on camera.

The two officers answered at once. "If you have proof, then of course it settles the matter."

I was about to say I had it, but Winona suddenly burst into tears. "Officers, those two really did it last night!"

"Last night Jerome assaulted me, and then Kay came over to my place!"

"The two of them hung around my apartment for ages, and they cleaned up every bit of evidence in it!"

"They even wiped away the fingerprints."

"I'm just a girl on my own. I was scared, so I didn't fight back!"

She sobbed through it all. "Now she says she has proof. Who knows if it's faked!"

At that, the two officers frowned slightly.

They looked at my husband and me. "Why don't the two of you come down to the station with us first?"

"Once we're at the station, we'll sort your situation out there."

Hearing that, a flicker of panic crossed my husband's face.

I knew he had an important meeting that morning.

Last time, missing that meeting cost the company a lot of money.

And after Winona made her scene, the company fired him outright.

I also understood that if this kept going, neither of us would be walking away.

I spoke up quickly. "Winona, you say my husband assaulted you."

"Then tell me. What time did my husband come over last night?"

Without a second's thought, Winona said, "A little after nine!"

"And what time did we leave your place?"

I fired the question fast. I knew Winona had already given the officers a full account, and she'd probably rehearsed the whole thing in her head.

So the moment I asked, she answered right away. "You left a little after eleven!"

"And that's when you wiped away all my evidence!"

I looked at Winona, and this time I smiled.

At the same time I turned to the officers. "Officers, I have proof that neither my husband nor I had any window to do this!"

"For that time last night, we have a witness!"

The second I said it, the crowd of neighbors around us broke into whispers.

Winona jumped in fast. "That's impossible!"

"Don't think you can slip through just by vouching for each other!"

"It was clearly the two of you last night!"

She was worked up as she said it. I only gave her a cold, level look before I spoke. "But Winona, the person who can vouch for me last night isn't just the two of us."

I pulled out my phone and stared straight at her. "Last night, I was livestreaming."

"There were tens of thousands of people watching my stream!"

"And my stream ran past midnight!"

"I even have the screen recording of the whole thing. You think that's enough?"

My voice wasn't loud, but it was ice cold, and the moment she heard it, Winona froze.

Then she suddenly screamed, beside herself. "Kay, you're lying!"